


Bye, Baby Bunting

by fredbassett



Series: Stephen/Ryan series [55]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 05:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan and Lyle are left holding a baby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bye, Baby Bunting

_Bye, baby Bunting,_  
Daddy’s gone a-hunting,  
Gone to get a rabbit skin  
To wrap baby Bunting in. 

“Don’t look at me,” said Lyle, taking a hasty step backwards, his face a mask of concern.

Ryan sighed. “Someone has to hold the baby,” he said, staring out of the cave at the ever-swirling snow. “Not my fault if it’s literal rather than metaphorical on this occasion. And you volunteered for this jaunt.”

“You’ve had a kid. You know what to do with them.”

“It was a long time ago, Jon, and I was away a lot.”

“You’ve still had more experience of them than me,” said Lyle, folding his arms over his chest and staring hard at the fur-wrapped bundle in Ryan’s arms as though he expected the quiescent child to suddenly sprout an extra head or something.

Ryan settled the baby in the crook of his arm and hoped for a break in the snowstorm. He clearly wasn’t going to be getting any help from his second-in-command, at least not where baby-sitting duties were concerned.

They’d found the child in the middle of a park on the outskirts of Birmingham, abandoned by a large wolf that had been scared off by a bunch of kids who’d thrown bricks at it until it had yelped and headed out of the park at speed, tail between its legs, into nearby woods where Stephen was probably still trying to track it down. The kids had stared hard at the anomaly and had steadfastly refused to be taken in by any of Claudia’s carefully crafted bullshit about unusual atmospheric conditions producing ball lightning. Connor had watched her struggle with a look of amusement on his face, carefully staying out of the way while Abby and Ditzy had opened the swaddling furs and checked the baby over for injuries. Their resident computer genius had then gone over to the nosy kids and, much to Claudia’s dismay, had told them they were a secret team dedicated to tracking down large animal sightings and hushing them up, to prevent the public panicking.

The kids had accepted that far more readily and had promptly demanded a tenner to keep watch on the team’s vehicles. Claudia had sighed and given in to blackmail with relatively good grace, saying she’d double it if the kids gave them early warning of any journalists who came sniffing around.

A brief look through the anomaly had revealed the harsh landscape of a rocky, deserted valley under a lowering sky, heavy with snow-clouds. Connor’s instruments indicated that the anomaly was both strong and stable, so Ryan had declared his intention of taking the child back through the anomaly in an attempt to find its parents. Lyle had stated in no uncertain terms that Ryan couldn’t look after himself and a baby at the same time, so command of the anomaly site had been delegated to Ditzy and the two men had gone through the flickering light with orders from Cutter to be away no more than two hours at the most and to keep any contact with other humans to the barest minimum.

The storm had hit with numbing ferocity when they’d been in the past for no more than fifteen minutes.

The two men had stumbled into a cave at the base of a high-sided cliff, flurries of fat white flakes swirling around them. A brief glance around had shown them that they weren’t the cave’s first inhabitants. A rough hearth of stones contained the remains of a fire and there was a stack of wood and dried moss further into the cave, but the blackened wood was cold and there were no signs of recent occupation. Lyle had stared at a mass of flint flakes on the floor near to the fire and had informed Ryan that they had probably stumbled on a temporary encampment for hunting parties. The captain had deferred to his companion’s greater knowledge of caves and archaeology.

The baby stared up at Ryan out of blue eyes that reminded him of his own daughter at that age. He jiggled her in his arms and watched his breath and the baby’s puff like smoke in the cold air.

“Get that fire lit, Jon, we’re going to have to ride this one out. I don’t fancy our chances of getting back to the anomaly without freezing the kid to death.”

Lyle glanced down at his watch, then pulled a lighter out of his pocket and started to gather some kindling from beside the stack of wood. “No need to panic yet, mate, it’s only been half an hour since we came through. The way that wind’s blowing these clouds will be on their way soon enough.”

Ryan hoped he was right, but with their recent luck he wasn’t placing any bets just yet. He stepped back from the mouth of the cave holding the child to his chest and pulling the soft furs closely around the small face. Ditzy had estimated the little girl to be no more than six months old, easy prey for a hungry wolf. It was lucky for her that the creature had been attracted to the anomaly in the unfathomable way that led to so many creatures finding themselves out of their own time, being chased by Ryan and his men. He just hoped his lover was having more luck tracking the wolf than he and Lyle were having finding the child’s family.

In a matter of minutes, Lyle had a fire going in the ring of stones and the smoke was tracking upwards in a natural rock chimney in the cave roof, rather than filling up their shelter. Ryan grinned. Maybe their luck was changing after all. The lieutenant was sitting cross-legged on the floor, feeding smaller pieces of wood into the crackling flames, occasionally glancing at his watch and then out of the cave mouth at the dancing flakes of snow.

The baby girl looked up at Ryan solemnly and made a quiet noise. He brushed a tuft of dark hair away from her eyes and muttered, “Sorry, kiddo, but you’re going to have to go to your Uncle Jon for a minute. I need a slash.”

Lyle looked up at him in outrage. “Oi, you can’t use language like that in front of her.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Ryan said, holding out the fur-wrapped bundle. “Come on, she won’t bite you.”

“Can’t you piss one-handed?” demanded Lyle, making no move towards either Ryan or the baby. “I had to when I had my arm strapped up last month.”

“I bet you got Lester to hold your cock for you,” said Ryan, watching the look of embarrassment on Lyle’s face with amusement.

“Leave my sex life out of this. And I told you not to talk dirty in front of the baby.”

“You can either hold the baby or my dick, Jon, it’s your bloody choice.”

Lyle’s eyes narrowed in thought and for a bad moment, Ryan thought he was going to choose the latter option. “What do I do if she cries?” demanded Lyle, holding his arms out and receiving the small bundle with a distinctly wary expression.

“Give her your finger to suck,” said Ryan. “And make sure you haven’t just picked your nose with it.”

The lieutenant flipped him off then gave the baby girl a tentative smile. “Don’t listen to your horrid Uncle Ryan, he lies like a cheap carpet.”

The child made a small cooing noise and Ryan knew Lyle would be putty in her tiny hands in a matter of minutes, despite the lieutenant’s protests. He took a few steps outside the cave, turning his back to the wind and freeing his dick from his trousers to send a yellow stream into the drifting snow. As he relieved himself, Ryan looked up at the sky and was pleased to see a small break in the clouds. Maybe Lyle had been right and the storm would blow over as quickly as it had come. He zipped himself up and stepped back into the relative warmth of the small cave.

Lyle had the baby held carefully in the crook of his left arm and seemed to be murmuring something that sounded suspiciously like a nursery rhyme.

“I’ll take her back if you like,” said Ryan, keeping what he hoped was a commendably straight face.

“Don’t want to disturb her,” Lyle said, with an equally straight face. “I think she’s gone to sleep.”

Ryan suppressed a grin. “I’ll keep an eye on what’s happening outside. You might be right about how quickly this could clear.” He moved back to the mouth of the cave and leaned against the wall, staring out at the rapidly thinning flakes. The small patch of blue sky he’d glimpsed through the massed storm-clouds might not be large enough to make a pair of trousers for a Dutchman, as his Nan used to say, but it was a distinct improvement on no blue at all.

It took another twenty minutes for the snow flurries to finally diminish, and by then Ryan was heartily sick of Lyle’s rendition of Bye, Baby Bunting, which seemed to be the only lullaby his friend knew. Fortunately the rest of the audience wasn’t quite so critical and, apart from the occasional gurgle, their small charge had remained quiet. They’d been in this icy world for nearly an hour before Ryan decreed it had cleared enough for them to resume their search for the child’s family.

They stepped outside with the baby still nestled in Lyle’s arms. They’d taken no more than few steps when the lieutenant came to an abrupt halt. “Ryan, we’ve got trouble. My thumbs are pricking.”

Instinctively, Ryan looked over his shoulder in the direction of the anomaly. It was nearly a mile away, at the end of the blind valley, still sparkling wickedly in the air and showing no signs of faltering. Driven by instinct, he looked up at the cliff above them.

A dark haired man dressed in animal skins, with a fur parka pulled around his head stared down at them, a spear held in his right hand, poised ready to throw. A small coil of smoke rose up in the still air, and Ryan realised that the man had been attracted to the smoke from their fire, rising up through a crack in the grey rock.

The two soldiers came to a halt. Ryan flipped open the top of his gun holster, but didn’t draw his weapon. He hoped the encounter wouldn’t turn violent. Ryan held both arms out, palms up, intending to signify that he was unarmed. A small scatter of stones from further along the valley drew his attention and he saw two people climbing swiftly and surely down the rock face: a man and a woman.

Lyle exchanged glances with Ryan and, after receiving a nod, held out the fur-swathed bundle. The look on the woman’s face when she saw the baby was enough to dispel any doubts they might have been harbouring about whether they’d found the child’s family or not.

The woman cried out something unintelligible and started to run through the snow towards them, her arms stretched out, a look of delight mingled with relief on her face. Lyle smiled at her and handed over the baby then stepped back while the woman examined her child. The man on the cliff-top lowered his spear and Ryan could see a smile on his face as well. The man nodded and Ryan did the same, hoping the gesture had the same significance.

The woman looked up from the baby held tightly in her arms and smiled brightly, her weather-beaten face wet with tears.

Both Ryan and Lyle returned her smile. It seemed they’d found a means of communicating after all. The baby gurgled happily. The woman reached into the folds of her furs and held out her hand. Two small ivory disks nestled in her palm. She smiled and said something that they didn’t understand, but it was clear that she was offering the disks as a thank you for the safe return of her child.

Lyle stepped forward, palm up, trying to look unthreatening and, for once, he appeared to be succeeding. The baby turned her head towards him and gave a happy-sounding gurgle. Her mother dropped the two disks into his outstretched hand and Lyle took them with a smile of thanks. He stepped back and handed one of them to Ryan. It was no more than two inches across, with a hole in the middle so it could be strung on a leather thong. The thin disk was decorated with a very finely engraved drawing of a mammoth. Lyle was examining his, a look of surprised delight on his face. His was carved with the head of a horse, its shaggy mane perfectly depicted with no more than half a dozen fine lines.

The woman pulled her furs back from her neck and pointed to a similar disk nestling in the hollow of her throat. She smiled again.

“Thank you,” Ryan said, and Lyle echoed his words.

The woman and her companion raised their hands, fists clenched in some form of farewell gesture, and then they turned and walked quickly away through the snow. The man with the spear had already disappeared.

Ryan and Lyle copied the gesture and were pleased when the woman looked back over her shoulder and gave them another wide smile. The two men stowed the small ivory disks carefully away and then started to make their way back as quickly as possible to the anomaly, which still turned and sparkled like a huge broken diamond in the sunshine that had replaced the storm.

They stepped back into the fading light of the park to be faced with a row of expectant faces, including the group of children that the team had clearly failed to shake off.

“We found her family,” said Ryan.

“Actually, they found us,” Lyle added. “What about the wolf?”

Stephen gestured to a large cage near the vehicles, where an obviously still-dopey wolf was glaring out at its captors.

“He shagged Mrs Henderson’s poodle,” commented one of the kids with a wide grin.

Ryan raised his eyebrows. “Couldn’t you have waited until we got home, sweetie?”

The children squawked laughing, Stephen made a rude gesture that amused them even more and Abby remarked, “It was a very big poodle.”

“Mrs Henderson wasn’t pleased,” Connor commented. “Claudia had to ring a vet to find out about the morning after pill for dogs.”

It was Lyle’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “I never expected this job to be so educational.”

“There’s a lot of stuff they never taught us at Hereford, mate,” Ryan said.

Lyle grinned, and touched the pocket he’d stowed the ivory disk in. “Yeah, but we managed all right, didn’t we?”

Ryan punched his friend’s arm lightly. “Yes, but remind me to teach you another lullaby sometime, Baby Bunting.”


End file.
